


Animorphs: The Addition

by Troper_Nyaru



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Troper_Nyaru/pseuds/Troper_Nyaru
Summary: Five ordinary kids take a shortcut through an abandoned construction site, gaining power and finding themselves caught up in a war beyond anything they'd imagined; that's the usual story. However, when a sixth joins them on that fateful night, their group isn't the only thing to expand...





	1. The Invasion - part one

  


Disclaimer: Animorphs belongs to Scholastic books, Power Rangers (yes, really) belongs to Saban Brands and Hasbro. The PR comic belongs to Boom! Studios. This is going to be less of a story than my other works, and more an interconnected series of one-shots; some longer than others, of course.

 

Animorphs: The Addition

 

Tommy didn’t really know what had compelled him, that first night, to tag after the five younger kids as they made their way toward that abandoned construction site. Maybe it’d just been because of the sense of kinship he felt with that kid Tobias, since both of them hadn’t seemed to be able to make friends easily, or else just because not one of those kids making their way into that maze of broken concrete and old, rusting construction equipment seemed to be even the same age as he was.

It just hadn’t felt right, letting a bunch of kids – all of them clearly younger than he was – go into a place that dangerous on their own.

And so Tommy had hurried, quickly catching up to the five of them with his longer stride.

“Hey,” he called, falling into step at the trailing edge of their group, next to the smaller boy whose hair looked almost like his; really, it was the same basic length and everything. “What’s a bunch of kids your age doing out in a place like this?”

He’d thought it was kind of uncanny, the resemblance between him and that other kid, back before Elfangor’s ship had crash-landed in front of them all, redefining everything he thought he knew about the world.

“Who are you calling a bunch of kids?” demanded the girl near the front of the group; the one who was nearly as tall as he was, which had been a pretty funny thought, given how young she looked.

“I have three years on any of you,” he informed her, knowing that it was probably only true in the broadest sense, but wanting to make his point all the same. “I’m allowed to call you kids, you kids.”

The laughter of the short kid walking next to him does a lot to defuse the tension that Tommy can almost see building between him and the blonde girl at the forefront of the group, and that kind of thing seems to be the catalyst for a round of introductions. Things go about as usual for this kind of situation, up to the point when it came time for Tommy to introduce himself.

“What?” he asked, in response to Jake’s laugh; the one that sounded like it’d taken nearly everything the younger boy had to suppress and then some.

“Sorry,” the younger boy said, regaining his composure about as fast as Tommy remembered himself doing. “It’s just, my older brother’s name is Tom.”

Tommy found himself laughing, returning Jake’s grin with one of his own. “You’re right, that is pretty funny.”

He never did find out just why the five of them had gone into the construction site that night, but as he ran from the Yeerk-enslaved humans and aliens hunting him down, furious tears streaking his face and Elfangor’s agonized cries echoing in his mind, Tommy had already resolved himself on what he was going to do. No matter what any of those younger kids chose to do for themselves, he was going to make sure that no one else suffered as a slave to those evil aliens. No matter what happened to him.


	2. The Invasion - part two

Finding out that Cassie’s parents owned and operated a clinic that took care of sick or injured wild animals hadn’t come as so much of a shock to him, once he’d had a chance to think about things. Really, it made a lot of sense that a kind, compassionate, understanding person like Cassie had been raised by those same kind of people. Looking around at all of the younger kids gathered around him in the barn where so many animals had been put up while they recovered from the injuries that had brought them to the attention of Cassie’s parents in the first place, Tommy turned his attention back to the discussion that seemed poised on the edge of turning into an argument.

 

All of them were making good points, even Marco, whose reasons for not wanting to involve himself in what might all too easily prove to be a long, protracted battle against the Yeerks and whatever forces they had brought to Earth when they’d decided they wanted to take it over. He was thinking about his father, and what the man’s reaction would have been if something happened to him. Tommy hadn’t known that Marco shared so many of his own circumstances; the same way Tobias seemed to share more than a few.

 

He wonders, even as he and Tobias firmly state their own resolve to continue the fight against the Yeerks even if they were forced to do it on their own, what it would have been like to be forced into the role of caretaker for a man who seemed to have given up on life completely; it couldn’t have been easy for him, and Tommy makes sure to let the younger boy know that if he needs any help dealing with things, Tommy would be there for him. Even through the ensuing sarcasm, he can tell that Marco’s grateful for the consideration.

 

After their encounter with the Yeerk-enslaved police officer – who’d expressed a particular interest in him, citing his well-known background as a martial artist and trying to use that to entice him into joining up with some kind of group called the Sharing – Marco had been quick to pounce on the opportunity, telling all of them once again to just forget about what was going on, forget about what they had learned, and focus their attention on keeping their families away from everything that was going on.

 

Those of them who _had_ families to speak of, anyway.

 

In the end, he and Tobias acquire a pair of bird morphs – a bald eagle and a red-tailed hawk, respectively – and leave to run surveillance; even if it ended up being just the two of them, Tommy was determined to do everything he could to make sure that no one else was forced to suffer as a slave of the Yeerks.


	3. The Invasion - part three

When he and Tobias found themselves called back to the barn later, Tommy found both Jake _and_ Marco far more subdued than he’d ever seen them before. And, while he might not have known the kids for as long as the rest of them – all except for Tobias; another thread that seemed to bind the pair of them together, closer than he’d ever been to anyone else – Tommy still found himself all but compelled to offer his own assurances once Jake revealed that his own older brother, the kid who was almost Tommy’s namesake, had been taken as a slave by the Yeerks.

 

The rest of them all find the resolve to fight then, if only until they manage to free Jake’s older brother from the Yeerks, and even though Tommy understands all of their reasons for being so reluctant – even if they seem to be mostly Marco’s – he still finds himself uncertain at the prospect of going into battle with only Tobias as backup. This wasn’t anything like the tournaments he’d found himself competing in when he’d wanted extra spending money, or else when he’d just needed to get out of the house and away from his parents’ determined indifference.

 

The both of them were good enough people, at least as far as keeping him fed and clothed and everything went, but neither of them had really seemed to take much of an interest in him beyond that.

 

Still, even if it _was_ just until they managed to free Jake’s older brother from the Yeerks, it would be good to have them beside him.


	4. The Invasion - part four

Their trip to The Gardens, somewhere that Tommy had often found himself wanting to go, and then wondering if it was even worth the time to ask his parents if they might want to come. They probably wouldn’t have thought much of the amusement park that made up half of it, but there was a chance that they might’ve enjoyed the zoo that made up the other half. Said zoo was their current destination, nearly all of them having agreed on the point that – morphing being their only means of fighting against the Yeerks and all of their forces – they needed to have better animal forms than just Jake’s dog, his and Tobias’ respective eagle and hawk, and Rachel and Cassie’s horse.

 

Oddly enough, _Tobias_ had been the only one who hadn’t been in favor of the idea, stating that he was happy with just the hawk that he’d acquired when he and Tommy had gone out to search for any clues as to where the Yeerks’ main center of operations – what Tobias had said was called a Yeerk Pool – might have been. The rest of their group, Tommy included, managed to talk him around, but even so he didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about the idea. Tommy wondered for a moment why that was, but then decided that it probably wasn’t that important.

 

Tobias was with them now, and that was really all that mattered.

 

Chuckling as Marco declared their group the Animorphs – idiot teenagers with a death wish, as he’d gone on to elaborate – Tommy shook his head as he fell into step with the rest of their group. Whatever else happened, he was glad to have them on his side. For however long that was going to be.


	5. The Invasion - part five

After the six of them had managed to escape from the Gardens’ security, something that Tommy had never expected to have to do before, he, Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias decided that they would stay in a group for as long as they could manage. He’d been the one to suggest it, knowing that there was at least _some_ safety in numbers for them, even if it wasn’t as much as it would have been if their plans didn’t hinge on getting into and out of the habitats of the kind of dangerous animals that ordinary people would have probably wanted to have as little to do with as possible.

 

The fact remained that none of them could truly claim to be _ordinary_ anymore.

 

Once he’d made his own selection – touching the lion in order to sample its DNA being both one of the most exhilarating _and_ one of the more nerve-wracking experiences of his life up to that point – Tommy followed along with Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias as the former acquired an African elephant, and the latter two tried to abstain from making their own selections. As it turned out, Cassie had had an injured wolf being treated in her parents’ clinic, and so could have easily have been said to be covered as far as fighting against the Yeerks was concerned. It was Tobias that Tommy found himself honestly worried about.

 

He didn’t really know what the younger boy’s reasons ultimately were for deciding not to acquire a new animal morph that could fight better than a hawk could; they were going to need all six of them ready for action if they were going to have any chance of defeating the Yeerks and their forces.

 

Making up his mind to speak to Cassie, once the four of them had managed to find Jake and Marco again, Tommy turned his attention back to searching. His and Rachel’s comparative height helped the pair of them to find Jake and Marco, who had apparently been hiding from the security that they hadn’t been able to lose nearly as well as the group that Tommy had found himself a part of had done. Though a large part of their nervousness seemed to have also come from the fact that their attempts to acquire a combat morph for Jake seemed to have gone more wrong than any of them had ever expected. Rachel didn’t seem to be putting much stock in their story, but Tommy found himself wishing that he could have found a way to keep them all together.

 

It wouldn’t have been easy, considering everything that had been going on at the time, but he couldn’t help thinking that things would have been better that way.


	6. Chapter 6

After making his way back to his house so that he could let his parents know he was doing all right, not that that kind of news really seemed to phase them one way or the other, Tommy made his way up to his room. Slipping out the window after putting the clothes that he wasn’t going to be needing up for the night, Tommy quickly morphed back into the eagle he’d started thinking of as his own, and made his way to Cassie’s house as quickly as his new wings would carry him. Looking around as he flew, Tommy found himself amazed all over again at the clarity of the eagle’s vision.

 

Cassie had talked about things like that, back when he and the other Animorphs – it was getting easier to think of the six of them as a group now that they had a name, but Tommy couldn’t help wondering just what he and Tobias would end up having to do, once Jake and the others had rescued Jake’s brother and could move on with their lives – had been acquiring new, stronger animal forms to use in their battle against the Yeerks and their forces. She’d talked about the way that, even though it _had_ been alien technology that had allowed the six of them to actually _change_ forms, the ancient people who’d lived in the Americas before them had also called upon the spirits of various animals to protect them.

 

Not to protect them from an alien invasion, of course, but to help them find the strength and courage to face whatever it was that they had needed to face.

 

None of the others had really been interested, and Marco in particular had been a bit more sarcastic than usual, but Tommy had found himself listening for more than just the sake of hearing about what the people who had lived here before believed. It was the _way_ Cassie had told the story that let him know that she thought a lot about things, and a lot about people, too. She was kind, compassionate, generous, and understanding; Tommy made up his mind right then and there that, even if she chose _not_ to fight against the Yeerks after they’d rescued Jake’s brother, he’d look out for her as best as he could.

 

Even though it was starting to seem like Marco was the only one who actually _wanted_ to walk away from all that they were gearing up to fight.

 

Looking down again, as he came within sight of the barn where he and the other Animorphs had met not so long ago, Tommy felt a chill run the length of his morphed spine as he caught a glimpse of a police car making its way steadily up the road to Cassie’s house. He didn’t know if it was that same cop that he and the other Animorphs had encountered back when they’d still been re-centering themselves after everything that had happened at the construction site, but in any case he knew it was better to be safe than sorry.

 

Especially given what they were all facing.

 

(Cassie! Cassie, if you can hear me, there’s a police car coming up to your house,) he said, even as he circled over that same house, keeping an eye on the progress of the car.

 

(Tommy?)

 

He breathed out as close as he could get to a sigh of relief in his current shape; at least whoever was coming wouldn’t be able to find Cassie in her current form. (Where are you?) he asked. (You’re not still in your house right now, right?)

 

(I’m a horse,) she answered quickly. (Here, I’ll toss my head so you can tell which one.)

 

Once he was able to get a bead on just where Cassie actually _was_ , he thanked her for the information, even as he continued to keep an eye out for what that cop was doing. A look in through the window told him that it _was_ the same exact cop who’d come out to Cassie’s house the first time, asking about things that had made it more than obvious to anyone paying attention that he was one of the Yeerk-enslaved humans who they were going to have to watch out for.

 

(He’s getting really close to your house, Cassie,) Tommy informed her, deciding then and there that he’d go down there and help her out. (I’ll be there in just a second.)

 

Folding his wings and falling from the sky, Tommy felt that same, ecstatic rush that he’d felt every single time he’d done that same kind of thing; even just landing in the tree outside his bedroom window when he needed to get back home was more exciting than it had ever really been when he was human. Opening his wings again, catching the air under them before he could get too close to the ground, Tommy concentrated on his human body as he swept in low over the long grass. His legs shot out under him, and he crouched to lessen the impact as he fell from the sky with wings that were too small to support what he was becoming.

 

Once he’d made it back into his human form, Tommy noticed the frantic expression on Cassie’s face as she ran over to him, a coat draped over her left arm and a pair of boots in that same hand. She gave them to him quickly, urging him to put them on before the cop that had already been approaching the pair of them made it close enough to see more than the vague outlines of their respective silhouettes.


	7. Chapter 7

Waking up with a dull ache in the back of his head, and a _sharp_ ache in his left knee, it took him only a few seconds to recall what had happened to him and Cassie when the pair of them had ended up being forced to confront that Yeerk-enslaved cop that had come out to harass her at home. He’d tried to settle the matter as diplomatically as he could, attempting to get both himself and Cassie away from the man without raising the Yeerk’s suspicions. Still, given the fact that he’d been shot in the left knee and then clearly knocked unconscious, Tommy knew that he’d failed.

 

Now, all that remained was for the pair of them to get through this as well as they could.

 

Glaring at the cop, as the Yeerk-enslaved man forced him and Cassie out of the car – kicking Tommy in his wounded leg when the pair of them apparently didn’t move quickly enough for him – he wrapped his left arm around Cassie as the pair of them were steadily forced in the direction of the _school_ , of all places. He hadn’t even suspected that something like this could have happened in a place he’d thought was so normal, or at least far enough removed from everything else that was going on that he didn’t have to worry about those kinds of things.

 

(Tommy; don’t freak out, or try not to react at all, if you can, but Jake wants you to know that the rest of us are here. We’re going to be coming for you guys, so don’t worry.)

 

Straightening up slightly, Tommy gave Cassie a light squeeze around her shoulders; even if she _didn’t_ know what it was for, and he wondered if Tobias _had_ just contacted him for some reason or other, she would at least know that things were going a _bit_ better.


	8. Chapter 8

Shuddering as the Yeerk-enslaved man continued shoving him, driving him and Cassie steadily deeper into what was clearly the Yeerks’ main base of operations, Tommy found himself passing by a row of _cages_ – each and every one of them seeming to hold at least ten people, all of them crammed in tighter than he’d seen even the animals in the shelters that he’d been to when he’d been thinking of getting a pet – finding himself all the more furious at what he was seeing. It was a helpless sort of fury, at first, then tempered by the knowledge that Jake and the others were going to be there with them soon.

 

He and Cassie wouldn’t be alone for much longer.


	9. Chapter 9

Things had happened quickly, once Tobias had come shooting down from high in the air and tearing his way across the face of the pair of Hork-Bajir that had been herding both him and Cassie out to the end of the pier, distracting the pair of them and letting Tommy punch the enslaved police officer who’d handed them off to the enslaved aliens. They’d nearly been at the end of the pier when that had happened; one of the two that had been built out over the pool that all of the Yeerks had been swimming around in. The worst of the two, as far as he was concerned; after going through the unloading of the alien slug, someone could at least be free while they were waiting in the cage. After the slug had gone in…

 

Steeling himself, even as he and Cassie completed their morphs – him into the lion that he’d found when he and the other Animorphs had been making their way through The Gardens for just that kind of thing, and Cassie into the horse that he remembered seeing her as when he’d come to her barn to warn her that she was in danger – Tommy leaped into the fray beside her. Roaring at the Hork-Bajir that had begun closing in on the pair of them, once they’d managed to break away from the crowd of people who they’d used for cover while morphing, Tommy looked over at Cassie as she called out to him.

 

(Could you not do that again? You really scared the horse.)

 

(Sorry about that,) he said, feeling a little sheepish for having to be reminded that the minds of the animals they morphed were just as much a part of them as their bodies.

 

Since he wasn’t about to leave Cassie alone to face the army of alien slaves trying to either capture or kill them, Tommy reined in his lion instincts as best he could.

 

(Cassie! Tommy! Keep heading for the stairs!)

 

(Right, Jake!) he called back, keeping abreast of Cassie as the pair of them charged the mass of Yeerk-enslaved humans and aliens that were still moving to overtake them.

 

They’d clearly been getting organized somehow, even as he and the other Animorphs had fought their way through them, because a line of Yeerk-enslaved Hork-Bajir and Taxxons – all of them with those same energy weapons in their hands that he’d only seen a few times before – was forming up in front of them even as he, Cassie, and Jake charged forward.

 

(Up and over!)

 

He and Cassie both echo Jake’s words back at him, and together the three of them leaped over the heads of the Yeerk-enslaved humans, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxons in their way. That, of course, was when Visser Three appeared again. Visser Three, whose Andalite form almost seemed small and comparatively harmless next to all of the other Yeerk-enslaved aliens they were fighting. Or, at least he would have, if there hadn’t been something about him that made him stand out from them.

 

Tommy wouldn’t have known how to describe it if someone had asked, but something felt _wrong_ about Visser Three.

 

(This Taxxon fool says that you are wild animals,) Visser Three said, as one of the Yeerk-enslaved aliens came over to talk with him in their strange, snakelike language. (He wants to know if he and his brothers can eat you.) The Visser’s cold, inhumane laughter – even silent as it was – sent a shudder down Tommy’s spine. (But I know that you are _not_ animals. I _know_ who and what you are. So; not all of you Andalites died when I burned your ship. I commend you for getting this far, but it will accomplish nothing. Because now, my brave Andalite warriors, it is time. Time to die.)

 

Even in his lion body, Tommy still found himself shuddering as Visser Three chuckled.

 

(I acquired this body on the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star. Like it?)


	10. Chapter 10

Fire. Visser Three’s new, horrible alien morph could breathe _fire_! Huge, spinning balls of flame, shot from each of the long-necked heads – eight of them in all; to match the eight arms, and eight _legs_ – that the Visser’s alien monster morph possessed.

 

(We have to get out of here!) he shouted, just in time for Marco to make the same declaration, or maybe Marco had spoken first.

 

Frazzled as he was, Tommy wouldn’t have really been able to tell anyone who had the presence of mind to ask.

 

(Right!) Jake called back. (Everyone, run! Head for the stairs! Rachel, you and Tommy clear a path!)

 

The both of them called back to him, acknowledging what he’d said, and then turned and made their way toward the stairs. But, just when they’d started closing in on the base of the stairs, more Taxxons than Tommy had seen before came swarming in on them. Gathering himself for a leap, as he saw Jake’s brother – the boy who was almost his namesake – being circled by a pair of Taxxons that were clearly determined to drag him back to the cages where all of the people they _hadn’t_ been able to save were still being held, Tommy came down on the one nearest to him.

 

Flattening the enslaved alien underneath the full weight of his lion body, Tommy nudged Jake’s brother firmly in the direction of the stairs, then turned to slash open the single remaining Taxxon before it could attack him again. Once he’d managed to make it back to Jake and the others, all of them pressing in close around Jake’s brother so that they would be able to protect him even while they were all going up the stairs, Tommy looked over at Rachel as their group made it to the wide base of the towering stairs.

 

(Morph back!) Jake shouted, before anyone else could say anything.

 

Shuddering slightly as Rachel began demorphing, Tommy turned his attention back to what was going on all around them. Visser Three was still determinedly raining fire down all around them, and the last two Hork-Bajir they’d managed to free from the cages fell, flames from the flying fireballs eating them alive.

 

Screaming as a fireball slammed into _his_ back from behind, feeling almost as though he’d been cut in half with a burning sword, Tommy heard Jake shouting for him to demorph, as well.

 

Concentrating on his human form, even as he felt Marco picking him up and carrying him when he failed to move very far on his own, Tommy blocked out everything else that was going on around him, wanting to be out of his badly-charred lion body as soon as possible. In the meantime, Tommy trusted that his friends and fellow Animorphs would be able to protect him.


End file.
